IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cam/camdae/0304.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Market-induced Asset Specificity: Redefining the Hold-up Problem

Author

Listed:
  • Lewin-Solomons, S.

Abstract

In a standard hold-up problem, individuals are vulnerable to hold-up because it is impossible to write complete contracts to cover the lifespan of relationship-specific investments. Hold-up occurs only when investments are to some degree nongeneric, and the extent of the problem increases with the time-span over which an investment must pay off, since long-term contracts are more difficult to write than short-term contracts. This result appears inconsistent with the real life experience of contract suppliers in two respects. First, suppliers often consider themselves "vulnerable" to hold-up even when investments are generic. Second, such a sense of vulnerability is often greatest precisely when assets are short-lived rather than long-lived. This paper provides a model that solves this apparent paradox by looking beyond the isolated problem of bilateral monopoly to the market context in which contracting takes place. We then find that the very meaning of asset specificity comes into question.

Suggested Citation

  • Lewin-Solomons, S., 2003. "Market-induced Asset Specificity: Redefining the Hold-up Problem," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0304, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
  • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0304
    Note: IO
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/wp0304.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-1158, December.
    2. Vetter, Henrik & Andersen, Torben M, 1994. "Do Turnover Costs Protect Insiders?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(422), pages 124-130, January.
    3. MacLeod, W Bentley & Malcomson, James M, 1993. "Investments, Holdup, and the Form of Market Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 811-837, September.
    4. Lindbeck, Assar & Snower, Dennis J., 1991. "Interactions between the efficiency wage and insider-outsider theories," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 193-196, October.
    5. Ramey Garey & Watson Joel, 2001. "Bilateral Trade and Opportunism in a Matching Market," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-35, November.
    6. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    7. George J. Stigler, 1951. "The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59, pages 185-185.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ricardo J. Caballero & Mohamad L. Hammour, 1998. "The Macroeconomics of Specificity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 724-767, August.
    2. Argyres, Nicholas S. & Liebeskind, Julia Porter, 2002. "Governance inseparability and the evolution of US biotechnology industry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 197-219, February.
    3. Robert Gibbons & John Roberts, 2012. "The Handbook of Organizational Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9889.
    4. Pontus Rendahl, 2013. "Equilibrium Contracts and Firm-sponsored Training," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1336, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Seitz, Michael & Watzinger, Martin, 2017. "Contract enforcement and R&D investment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 182-195.
    6. Ngo Van Long & Antoine Soubeyran & Raphael Soubeyran, 2014. "Knowledge Accumulation Within An Organization," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1089-1128, November.
    7. Dan Huang & Luxun Liu, 2014. "Micro-determinants of vertical integration: Evidence from China," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 377-396, June.
    8. Hubbard, Thomas N. & Garicano, Luis, 2003. "Specialization, Firms and Markets: The division of Labour Between and Within Law Firms," CEPR Discussion Papers 3699, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. James M. Malcomson, 2012. "Relational Incentive Contracts [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    10. Williamson, Oliver E., 2010. "Transaction Cost Economics: The Natural Progression," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 215-226.
    11. Miguel Espinosa, 2021. "Labor Boundaries and Skills: The Case of Lobbyists," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1586-1607, March.
    12. Donald B. Hausch & Yeon-Koo Che, 1999. "Cooperative Investments and the Value of Contracting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 125-147, March.
    13. Alla Lileeva & Johannes Van Biesebroeck, 2013. "Outsourcing When Investments Are Specific And Interrelated," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 871-896, August.
    14. Bigelow, Lyda S. & Argyres, Nicholas, 2008. "Transaction costs, industry experience and make-or-buy decisions in the population of early U.S. auto firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 791-807, June.
    15. Ilya Segal & Michael D.Whinston, 2012. "Property Rights [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    16. Antonio Nicita & Massimiliano Vatiero, 2014. "Dixit versus Williamson: the ‘fundamental transformation’ reconsidered," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 439-453, June.
    17. Makoto Hanazono, 2004. "Holdup with Subsidized Investment," KIER Working Papers 586, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    18. Jain, Bharat A. & Kini, Omesh & Shenoy, Jaideep, 2011. "Vertical divestitures through equity carve-outs and spin-offs: A product markets perspective," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 594-615, June.
    19. Matthew Ellman, 2006. "The optimal length of contracts with application to outsourcing," Economics Working Papers 965, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    20. Maija Halonen‐Akatwijuka, 2010. "Organizational Design, Technology and the Boundaries of the Firm," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(307), pages 544-564, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    asset specificity; hold-up; market structure; contracts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • M2 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0304. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jake Dyer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.